Ten Day Guide to Quick and Permanent Sanity Loss
by paradoxicalagent
Summary: You smile at him, the way you imagine a Cheshire cat would. SV, SW. AU.


Day one of your new life.

You awake with a jolt. Where the fuck are you? Autopilot: Two exits, three windows, no cameras or guards. And then it comes back. The phone call to Kendall on a busy Hong Kong street, the jog to the safe house and the smell of cat piss and cigarette smoke ingrained in your sheets. The wash of relief thinly disguising anger when it's Weiss who opens your door. He doesn't seem particularly pleased to see you either, a 'hello Sydney' before he pulls his gun and has it aimed at your skull.

Questions follow, lots of questions, personal little things that no one should really care about. From your friends and family to trivial parts of SD-6 and CIA ops that were so insignificant that they weren't included in the debrief, and Vaughn. There were a lot of questions about Vaughn.

And you want to know what the hell this is all about but every time you talk out of turn he sits up straighter and taps his gun against his knee, itching to pull the trigger. You're pretty good at reading people and the way he's looking at you conveys a lot more hostility that the 'not not' he silences you with. You think you should take a few steps forward, punch him in the temple and run. You could take Weiss, easy. But you don't really know where you stand. This is hardly an interrogation, no actual intelligence exchanging sides, just your own private moments. And sure you can take Weiss, but Weiss wouldn't point his Glock at you and say 'not now' when he must know that you have to tell him about Allison and Francie. How you need see Will and your father and Vaughn. How you desperately need to see Vaughn. And so maybe this isn't really Weiss. This would be how they'd do it. A kidnapping or two, pump everything you ever knew about the real Weiss (and a little more just to be prudent) to create a double with the same history, memories, mannerisms. Your body would be found dumped in a lake with a bullet lodged in your skull, not an unusual situation for the intelligence industry. He'll speak at your funeral, comfort your friends and blame all his slip ups on the emotional trauma of losing someone so special as Sydney Bristow.

That thought makes it easier for you to let the tears fall, look at him with watery eyes and say 'I just need to see him, please, just once and then I'll tell you everything you want to know.' He lets through a little confusion and sympathy and guilt before he remembers to be guarded around you. That thought makes it considerably easier to kick him in the head, pick up his gun and run.

You shoot the guard at the end of the hall and make it to the makeshift dining room before one of the other five shoots you in the lower spine with a tranq gun. You lash out at the closest in your semi-conscious state and hit the corner of the flimsy table on the way down. At least they had the respect to not underestimate you; sent six guards instead of a paltry two and then have to rig a messy explosive to the underbelly of some taxi to finish off the job.

When you come to, your hands are cuffed behind the fold out chair which they've bolted to the floor and he's sitting there, staring at you. Your eye's flit to the tiny bandage on his forehead where you broke the skin. He sees this, and the first thing he says is 'now we have matching bandaids.' You want to laugh and scream and kick him again. Just a few more steps forward by him and you will. You think he knows this, because he maintains a solid distance.

You remember him telling you that you'd been missing for two years, that they knew about Francie and Alison and Project Helix. The CIA knew about the second double and you just disappeared off the face of the earth, swallowed whole by those monsters they kept insisting weren't real.

You don't bother restraining yourself, you yell obscenities and throw yourself against the handcuffs until the skin rubs raw and your heart is pounding. He waits patiently for you to tire before he explains your 'death'. Some part in the back of your mind says this is a trick; a complex mind-fuck as part of a conditioning process because you're alive and you remember your name and birthday and favourite colour and so surely you can't have forgotten two years. And yet this is the closest you've got to answers since you woke up with the taste of fear in your mouth, so the manipulative and unsurprisingly dominant part of your brain lets this little fact slip past and lets you ask all the questions you want.

'Is Will alive?' you ask.

'No, bled out in the bathtub.'

'Oh God. Francie, did they find Francie?'

'They found a body washed up in some lake, point blank shot to the head and the dental records matched.' You laughed at your private irony because what else is there to do?

'And Allison?'

'The body wasn't found, presumed to have been extracted and to be currently working for Sloane.'

'Where's my father?'

'He's uh, back in LA.'

'Then why didn't he come to get me, to bring me back?'

'He went rogue after you die-disappeared. Found later to be working with your mother-'

'My mother? Where is she?'

'Syd, I don't think you should hear all this right now.'

'TELL ME where the fuck my mother is right now.'

'She's dead, Jack killed her. He came back to the CIA, different, darker, and they stuck him in solitary. Eventually he struck a deal, gave over hundreds of contacts for a pardon agreement.'

'I want to see him.'

'I know, but Sydney, Jack's different now. He's not the father you remember.'

'I don't care. Why didn't they send him to get me?'

'They did. He asked not to come; he asked not to see you.'

'Oh. Weiss, why didn't they send Vaughn?'

'He requested a lower position after your disappearance, he doesn't have the clearance.'

'And you didn't ask him to come anyway?'

'We're not really close anymore. He made that quite clear.'

'Wait, he doesn't know I'm alive?'

'No, he doesn't.'

'I need a phone, give me your phone.'

'Sydney, this isn't a good idea.'

'Give me the fucking phone. I need to call him.'

'Sydney, stop, there's something you need to know. You've been gone for two years, that's a long time and Syd, Vaughn mourned you for months, wouldn't even come out of his apartment, but eventually he had to move on.'

'What are you telling me?'

'Syd, Vaughn's married.' You remember numb, a lot of numb. It multiplied quickly, spreading from somewhere deep inside until you could no longer feel your limbs. 'You said before that you wanted to see him, would you still like me to contact him?'

'No, why the fuck would I want to see the bastard who after everything we went through couldn't wait to get someone new in him bed. No, he's better off thinking I'm still dead.'

You remember feeling very cold, very alone in the world. You remember useless emotions of resentment and regret and bitterness. You ask Weiss to let you out of the chair and he looks at the broken girl and can't say no. The last thing you remember is punching the only person you have left over and over until they tranq you again.

It's like every loss you've had before; your mothers first 'death', your fathers abandonment, Danny, Noah, almost-Vaughn multiplied by a thousand. They threw all the hurt that existed in your world into a blender and poured you a shot. It's so concentrated that it burns its way down your throat, corroding everything it touches. It makes a hole so big, makes you so hollow that you've got nothing left to comprehend the void with. And so you continue on as though you're whole.

You assume this is a safe house until you find the stack of papers on the kitchen counter. You're apartment was completely incinerated in the cover-up fire so this is to be your new permanent residence. Officer 2194675, which you recognise as Weiss' number, apparently lives two apartments down and will assist in your recovery. It's a blur of cold letters and numbers and insincere sentiments; we appreciate the risks that you have undertaken in your service to the CIA and the United States of America blah blah fucking blah. You sign your name a couple of times, tick the box to turn down their resignation offer and cross the one to say you will be returning in ten days for counselling and debrief to determine whether you are capable of returning to active duty. There is nothing of any actual interest in the hundred so pages, just a reassurance to the CIA that you won't be suing their arses in five years because you're so screwed up by the 'sacrifices'.

You take a walk down the bottle-o and pick up a bottle of triple distilled vodka. You climb under the covers like when you were a child and thin pieces of cotton could protect you from everything in the world. You watch the red digits of the alarm clock slice through the blurry air, trying to catch them flick from minute to minute when they think no one is watching. How would time just disappear? Did the seconds dissolve in your blood like salt in water and drain out through the gash on your stomach? Did the memories evaporate, drift out into the atmosphere, mingle with the smoggy air before slipping inside other people's head and becoming senseless dreams. The type of dreams that they'll wake up from and make them consider laying off the curry from the Indian shop down the road.

You tell yourself you don't need him and the shock and vodka make it easy to believe.

Day Two.

Your body clock kindly wakes you at six thirty with the taste of vomit at the back of your throat and a bitch of a hangover. You won't need him today. You tell yourself this as you scrub your skin raw until the water runs cold and your CIA issued cornflakes go soggy in the bowl.

You'll go for a run. Running always clears your head and you think a clear head is recommended for thinking about big things like this. You run past the park and see kids on the swings with their friends and the idea that you have no one crosses your mind but yesterday you had Francie and Will and Vaughn so that can't be true. You pass the cinema and see advertisements for films you've never heard of before and the thought that you have a void of two years occurs to you but that's just ridiculous and so you instead focus on avoiding the pedestrians. The thoughts come but it's like you can't make logical sense of them so your mind rejects it, it's like subconscious compartmentalisation.

The pounding of rubber soles on concrete and the thumping of your heart in your chest is mind numbing. The rush of air on heated cheeks and the condensation of sweat beads as the night cools is freeing.

You run so far in no specific direction that when you hail a cab it takes an hour and a half on clear streets to reach your apartment. Your legs scream run, run, run, you idiot. You only stopped because you hoped someone would miss you if you passed out from dehydration. The fact there really was no one should make you feel something approaching loneliness but your aching muscles and pounding head take precedence until your legs give way in your hallway.

Day Three.

There are so many things swirling around inside your head and you think you shouldn't even be able to function normally because of everything fighting for your attention and yet you still have motor function and the ability to form coherent sentences. It's slightly surreal. Scratch that, it's like living inside a Dali artwork.

You remember reading in a trashy magazine that to deal with the I-still-want-you stage of a break-up you need to get all your unreturned feelings down on paper. This doesn't really apply because it wasn't really a dumping, no –it's not you, it's me- or –I know I said when I looked at you I didn't see your bitch of a mother, but now I'm not so sure-, no punching in his number from muscle memory just to hear his pre-recorded voice or transfers to another office after awkward meetings at the water cooler. It doesn't really apply because you're not some seventeen year old who's convinced they'll never love again. You're not the type of girl who needs some guy to be happy, no-sir-ee.

Just in case, you write three separate letters about how you adored him, depended on him, loved him. Absolutes in a time when the world was spinning frantically out of control. You try to pour your heart but it must have been part of the collateral damage because you can't seem to feel the things that were once true.

You briefly recall reading that you most definitely should not send said letters, instead you should put them in a shoebox and leave them to gather dust in the back of your empty wardrobe, come across them in ten years when you're married to a guy named Sam and pregnant with your second child. Laugh at your stupidity and throw them in with the recycling.

That explains why you stood at the post box for fifteen minutes contemplating the simple act of lifting your hand and slipping them. Just a simply matter of co-ordinating muscles to produce movement. You desperately want him to know but you're unsure what you would do if he actually cared.

Instead you take a walk to the pier and remove the cream stationary from their matching envelopes with the CIA's address scrawled in ink. You make six pretty little paper cranes and sit them on the railing, daring them to fly away and leave you alone. It takes twenty nine seconds for a gust of wind to sweep them off their delicate paper feet and dump them in the water. It takes a further six seconds for a wave to engulf them and another twelve for them to become pollution in a world already beyond help. You're tempted to dive in after them.

Day Four.

It's almost the midway point, which certainly means things can only get better. Right? Because that's exactly how life works. You start the day off on a positive, the first meal you've been able to keep down. Low carb, low sugar, low fat. It means you're less disturbed when you can taste nothing at all.

You watch the wallpaper, like those 3D magic eye things they used to put in the Sunday magazines you get with the newspaper. When you stare at it long enough in a particular way a picture jumps out at you. You used to sit on your mothers lap and look for it together while Jack explained the biochemical electrical impulses that the brain sends out in order to interpret visual cues.

You get an uncontrollable urge to remove it from your life, to replace it with something 'now'. You came home yesterday to find that all your sharps from dinner knives to razors had inexplicably vanished. You scratch at the ugly blue pattern with non existent fingernails to find an equally ugly though less distracting yellow coloured paint underneath.

At six past eight Weiss casually walks past your apartment, discreetly flashes a glance through the front window and then loses what semblance of subtlety he had left when he sees the piles of wallpaper now littering the dark apartment. You see the alarm when he spots you and your bleeding fingertips that bring back memories of a time when one of your more pressing concerns was a blonde with a pixie cut. You smile at him, the way you imagine a Cheshire cat would.

Hurried rapping on your door and reprimands disguised as your name do nothing but compel you to commence a staring competition with the thin strip of light under the front door. Who will look away first? He knows you're in there, listening to him worry and laughing silently as his foolishness. A final 'dammit Sydney' before retreating into his own private battle of wills.

Day Five.

You are engrossed in your staring competition when, according to your plastic watch, at five to three you win. Your competitor didn't have a chance and in losing takes all your electrical appliances with it to the depths of hell. You grab a coat and find that it also took the entire streets worth of power. You pass a lone hooker on the way to the seven-eleven and hiss 'you're next, slut'.

You notice seven-eleven has very little in the way of stationary, so you take it all. You are now the proud ower of forty three dollars and ninety five cents worth of black and blue permanent markers and childishly coloured finger paints.

In waiting for your lights to be graciously returned to you, you lie on the couch and mumble the words to the walrus and the carpenter to a tune you don't think belongs with the lyrics.

At morning break you've almost filled a quarter of a wall in passages of Shakespeare and Tolstoy and the Chronicles of Narnia. Quotes by Romeo and the Mad Hatter and Jesus. Doodlings of hearts and flowers and guns and death. You write down the things you can remember just in case they get lost in the vortex that is your head. It'll be a reminder that you once had these memories. Many notes to self: I do not need him. Splashes of paint like in that Rorschach test Barnett gave you once. It was less a test and more to see how convincingly you could recite preprepared answers that ensured you were allowed out into the field. Saying you saw monsters in the inkblots was a big no-no, indicated emotional instability. You see a lot shapes like that today but you're a big, bad spy girl and you're not scared of the monsters under the bed.

Weiss has returned after a couple of hours sleep. He threatens to bring along your father to lure you out of the safe haven you have created. From the desperation in his voice, you bet he's already pleaded with Jack and failed to get a response. You're father for all intents and purposes has disowned you again. But that's okay, you've got almost twenty years practice at that game. He can't stand to see your mother in your eyes (because of what she did to him, because of what he did to her) and doesn't care to save you from yourself.

'Stubborn girl.'

Day Six.

With the help of your dining table you have completed one and a half walls at the time Weiss begins his steak out. He appears to have been given the day off to sit at your loyal front door and make empty threats every now and again. By the time he gets up for his afternoon tea break you have finished three.

At seven thirty he gets up and screams 'okay, you win. I'm leaving'. Apparently over the past few years he has grown accustomed to not dealing with stubborn Bristow's. Just to keep him on his toes you open the door and let him in.

You inquire as to why he has been so worried. 'Look at me, I'm alive and not missing any limbs or internal organs, what's the problem?'

'Yes, look at you, when's the last time you showered? Or slept? Or ate?'

'A few days ago, I'm not tired and I'm absorbing nutrients from the air.'

'You're being ridiculous. Syd, you're better than this. I know you're better than this. Let me look after you.' A third trimester pregnant pause. 'Do you want me to bring him here?'

'I. DON'T. FUCKING. NEED. HIM'

You refuse to speak to him and he takes the extremely subtle hint and leaves.

7:48 pm- Weiss leaves apartment block. 8:06- Weiss returns. 8:09- Weiss leaves peace offering at door.

You venture out to see a Starbuck's paper cup on your doormat. The waft of steam hints at something not conventionally found in a skim caramel latte. The curiosity overwhelms you as to what drugs he's blessed you with. Tranquillisers, no doubt, the surprise will be how many hours of nothingness you have received. You've lost two years, which is about one hundred and seventy two thousand hours. You're dealing with that fine, so what's a couple more?

8:54 am- Prescriptions, clever. Your throat burns and muscles ache. You close your eyes again and prove that you need no ones arms to fall asleep in. You dream of blood filled baths, endless numbing ice and scarring flames. Of fairytales gone wrong and grey matter covered in golden hairs. An unknown yet familiar face tells you what you knew all along.

Day Seven.

It seems as you were envisaging sickly sweet scenes, your life was being rebuilt. With only a tinge of the comforting haze remaining you notice that the Weiss fairy has come. The floor is free of wallpaper, cupboard full of rice crackers and two-minute noodles and a bug in the television. How freaking sensitive of him. He did, however, leave the sleeping pills.

You dry swallow two, making sure he won't miss it when he watches the recording and fall asleep on the couch.

Day Eight.

You're due back in a couple of days and thinking innocent thoughts of Italian restaurants and antique stores when you have a craving for pizza. Flipping through the phone book, p, u, v… Vaughan, Vaughn. Hmm, not greasy pizza and yet equally delicious. Forty six Vaughn's in LA. Two M. Vaughn's. Keys, check. Wallet, check. Rationality, um… You're sure it's in the car.

First M. Vaughn is an eighty-year-old man, who appears to spend his day watching taped reruns of Mash and completing genius crosswords.

That narrows it down pretty easily. One nondescript black car in the carport, a subscription bill to some hockey magazine in the letterbox along with a envelope with the CIA's stamp and the wife's name on it. Interesting.

No one's home, its eleven thirty and they should both be at headquarters saving the world from madmen and fifteenth century philosophers. Easy double wafer lock, for you at least. Designed to keep out hobos and bored teenagers, not exactly taking into account ex girlfriends with quite a few years in the spy trade. Their home is the picture of normalcy, happy couple photos and clear of reminders of deceitful mothers and deceased fathers. All the things you could not give him.

You give yourself the grand tour, noting all the little quirks that bring him closer to you. The bookshelf full of aged classics, dust gathering on expensive skates and matching curtains and cushions. The life of a Vaughn undisturbed by obsessive double agents. He got what he always wanted; he told you this was what he always wanted, wife, house, ordinary. You're unsure whether you hate him or not for this. But you're certain you don't need him. Very certain.

You wander around in a trance like state, drifting and absorbing until the sound of children laughing in the next house over stirs you. You estimate half an hour until their return and you think it would be rather hard to explain away your presence (being supposedly dead and all) not to mention unbelievably awkward. Oh, um…hi. I was just, ah, in the neighbourhood. I brought cookies and a couple of lost hopes. You grab yourself a souvenir, an old business shirt from the back of the wardrobe that you're sure you tore from his body a few times. It still has the creases of freshly pressed cotton but smells of mothballs and only a hint of the peppermint and sunscreen that you distinctly remember.

You sit in his garden, in thick bush, just under his bedroom window and inhale deeply. Reverted back to memories of approving glances and hands on thighs and back seat fucking. They announce their arrival with the slamming of car doors and teenage giggles. You can imagine the scenario. Staring each other down through debrief, heated kisses in the parking garage, return home to the privacy of the couch. You can imagine it, because it was once you. You hear his voice for the first time in eight days.

Weiss comes home to find you sitting on his couch with a toasted cheese sandwich and his bottle of bourbon. You look up at him and he notices you've been crying. Cheeks wet, salt laced lips, fresh tears ready to fall giving you an ethereal appearance, an innocence that you've long since lost. He's in a state of shock when you choke out 'I just, I just need someone to talk to.'

'Umm…there's Barnett?'

'No, about…about nothing.'

'Oh, okay then.' You're such a fucking ice bitch. Real tears would have frozen before they could roll down your face.

The last few drops fall from the second bottleneck, he is completely out of his mind and you put into action what this evening has been about. You lean in and put yourself in his personal space, breath the same warm, spiced air. The spirits have deprived him of any kind of inhibition and it takes only a moment before most things register in his fuzzy mind. He leans in to take your lips in his and it's not long before it becomes a messy clash of lips, teeth and tongues. It's a desperate mix of loneliness, lust, emptiness, betrayal. It is expected of you, to fall for the best friend of your ex-lover, as long as you're predictable they won't be waiting to shoot you with tranqs when you step outside (because you're not so deluded to believe they're not out there). You don't need him anymore. There's a position to be filled, why not with the reliable? The safe? The guy who had managed only a three-week fling in your two years gone? He, because you're the unattainable, a Greek goddess of sorts. Painfully beautiful, brilliant, funny. His package. There would be no next time with a woman like this. You're glad he's so drunk that he won't have to think about the fact that in your mind, a week ago you were fucking his ex-best friend. You would force yourself to see, actually see and deal with the brown hair with your fingers running through it and those glazed eyes. You would force his name from your lips and kiss him softly.

He falls asleep with his arm slung across your stomach. You know you should get up and leave his apartment and go. Just go. But doing that makes this a mistake and until it's a mistake you can continue on without guilt or regret or the crumbling of your carefully constructed bubble. Instead you reach up, pull the throw from the couch over you and lie awake in the darkness. You would be here when he came to and the sky would not have fallen.

Day Nine.

You hear his groan of consciousness, undoubtedly from his disgusting hangover. You watch him piece it all together, the bottles, the naked woman in his arms, and it would take a few more seconds before he recognised the similarities between this naked woman and…

'Syd?'

'Hmm?'

'Ah, did we, ah…'

'Mmm.'

You put on a sweet fake smile, brush his shoulder with your fingertips and say 'maybe everything will be aright'. He does not say 'no, this was wrong' or even 'I think we should leave it at this because you're borderline insane'; he smiles back and kisses you gently. Because you are Syd and he is Weiss and this is the way the script goes. You play your roles with a naive realism in a hope that maybe everything would work out.

To avoid the awkwardness that inevitable comes with your morning after, you make yourself a cup of coffee, double shot short black, not nearly strong enough, and sit on the same couch he found you in yesterday. You look at the photographs that were snapshots of his simple life. Mummy's boy Weiss, graduate Weiss, drinking buddy Weiss. You envy him, how had he managed to divide his life up and keep them in little boxes without them all colliding, without it all going to hell? How come he had succeeded where you had failed so horribly?

You sit for a while, letting the coffee grains settle to the bottom of the stained coffee mug, wondering what you should do next. You're quite sure you should feel something. You're not entirely sure what, but definitely something. Perhaps anger or completeness or vulnerability? You hadn't anticipated the continued v o i d, the complete lack of direction. You only notice he's returned from the bedroom when he interrupts the blank space you'd been staring into.

'Syd?'

'Hmm?'

'Are you okay?' You give him a warning stare. Very brief but clear as day: if you want this, there will be no mention of the past week. Alcohol and sex has removed it from both our memories. The glint of violence in your eye is replaced with assurance. You're perfect, moving on.

'Are you sure this is all right, I mean us. That we're all right. Like this?'

You smile your perfected reassuring smile and says 'aha we're fine. We're wonderful. In fact stay. Don't leave, stay with me.'

'You know I can't. Gotta go out and save the world. But I'll see you tonight. Kay?'

You knew he couldn't, hoped he wouldn't. Didn't particularly want the company.

Day Ten.

At your insistence, you take separate cars in. You don't have any form of ID so you have to get Kendall down to get you a guest badge. He has your itinerary for the day, Barnett, Psyche Eval., four hour debrief, lunch break, further two hour debrief. Your hate for Kendall just reached new, previously unexplored levels.

The meeting with Barnett is an attempt to instil a sense of comfort and calm, send the message that the CIA is looking out for you. Really it's so they can catch the inconsistencies early on, let sympathetic Barnett watch you fumble and then grill you about them in debrief.

'How are you doing?'

'Fine.' (bullshit)

'This is completely confidential' (bullshit). 'You can talk to me, Sydney.'

'I know.'

'Sydney, I know that this must be hard for you to deal with, to accept but it will get better. We need to begin the healing process. I want to help you but to do that you need to let me.'

'Okay.'

'Tell me what you remember from the past two years. We can start from there…'(Would someone please call the bullshit).

'ID number 2300844, Bristow, Sydney. A., codename mountaineer, born April seventeenth 1975, five foot eight, Correct?'

'Yes.'

'Agent Bristow, lets start with the basics. Your roommate…Francine Calfo was replaced by an agent…an Alison Doren using the gene sequencing project…helix. Is that right?'

'Yes.'

'We'll go from the beginning. Can you tell us the time at which the switch took place?'

'No.'

'No?'

'I didn't notice the switch.'

'So what you're telling me is that you didn't notice when you best friend since freshman year was replaced by a stranger?'

'No.'

'Bristow, you're a gifted agent. Now tell me what have you been up to these past two years?'

'Syd?'

'Yes.'

'How you doing?'

'Fine. I'm fine.'

'Don't worry about it so much. It'll be over soon; you've just got a one more to do. Easy.'

'I know.'

'So, how about we go out, get something for lunch, keep your energy levels up. You must be falling asleep listening to them drone. How's Italian sound?'

'No thanks, Eric. I'll just get a cup of coffee here.'

'Syd, to say the coffee here tastes like shit would be too close to the truth for comfort. I get that you're worried but all they want to find out is where you were. Once they do that, they'll lay off.'

You pick up a bottle of diet coke from the vending machine and it swallows your 45 cents change. You mutter to yourself, various curses directed at all the people who are happy to examine your scars and confidently tell you that once they figure out where you were, everything will be back to the way it was.

They sit in the opposite corner of the room. A king with his pretty queen. He's cut his hair, bought new shoes and changed his cologne from your favourite to hers.

She's everything you are not, everything you wish she wasn't. Gorgeous, confident, loved. His.

He didn't notice you on the way in, just the familiar flick of the hair on the way out. He does the clichéd double take and you're staring right at him. He pales, you laugh, she stays picture perfect.

'Oh my god, Sydney?' He's trembling, reaching his hand out to touch your cheek, like maybe you're a hallucination, like maybe this has happened before. You take a step back.

'The very ghost herself.'

'You're…alive. You're alive.' The wife's smile falters.

'So it would seem. Weiss didn't tell you?'

'Huh? Oh, um, no, he didn't. You're…not dead. Oh my god.'

'I think we covered that.' He looks like he's about to throw up.

'But…the fire and I looked and…'

'Well, I actually don't remember the past two years so I really can't help you out there. They seem to think I was involved in this big conspiracy.' At that he actually empties his stomach contents into the nearby bin.

'Well, I think I better be off…'

'No, um, Sydney, oh my god, Syd. This is ah, Lauren. She's my…wife.'

'I figured. Nice meeting you. I'm glad I meant so little. I'll see you around.' You see his eyes water. You hope it hurts.

…

You ask for the rest of the day off. You throw in phrases like 'emotional distress', 'quick recovery' and 'Dr. Barnett said' to aid your cause. They believe you. Some bad habits are just too good not to use to your advantage.

You go home, lock the doors and windows and take the phone off the hook.

Day Eleven.

As you walk through those front doors you are certain for the one time in your life what will come of today. Concerned co-workers stare at the hollow child in high heels and lipstick. Wishing to grow up, but never old. Hoping to gain wisdom without experiencing the loss of innocence. So much naivety trapped within a tiny heart.

Accusations of withholding information, betrayal and elaborate cover ups. You wish you had the energy to play with their minds and hold their hands all the way to the fake pot of gold and leprechaun. Why yes, I actually was conspiring with Alison Doren, put the bullet in Francie's head myself and left the CIA of my own accord. Oh, and I do remember the past two years, I was screwing with you before.

You get the password of some guy with a desk job who's worked here a while. Just a quick look over his shoulder as he logs in tells you maclean.harry's password is sarah69. Pathetic. You wonder how the hell he got omega-7 clearance. You actually needed clearance to find out which office your father works at. You couldn't ask Dixon- witness protection, not Vaughn, not Weiss. You are so fucking alone.

You sit at the pier. You raid your father's office. You see them. You can actually still sense his presence, recognise his footsteps and smell the same shampoo over the fucking cologne.

He visibly takes in a breath. He's angry confused lustful still mourning. She's suitably pissed.

Before he can take the few steps required to bring you to your knees you pull out the gun that had been cooling your feverish skin. You smile your Cheshire grin and panic envelopes. Abruptly, completely, irrevocably.

Those concerned co workers are now more apprehensive about their well being than yours. Their impressions of you switch from helpless to madman. Noise movement pure chaos. He doesn't flinch.

The blonde is hiding behind a desk and the sadistic side of you wants to witness the colour drain from her lips and hold her hand until her fingertips cool. He sees you glance at her and calls your attention back.

'Sydney, put the gun down. Listen to me, give me the gun and we can sort this out.'

Cynic Syd sitting on your shoulder reminds you of all the lies. He lied when he told you he loved, when he said he'd never leave in spite of your flaws, keep you safe when insanity ruled. You agree with the little hissing figurine.

'I sorta gave up on the whole happy ending thing a little while ago.'

'Syd, listen, Syd, we can work this out. It doesn't have to be this way.' You're tempted to believe him but betrayal after double cross after back stab has trained you to be the sceptic you are.

You hear the grind of metal on metal from behind, the familiar click-click of a gun you know well, and the saying now or never has never been truer.

'Sydn-'

Aim fire. You're not sure you were ready. Blood and bloodcurdling screams. Fire. Together once more.

Obsession isn't dangerous until somebody gets hurts…oops. Perhaps you needed him after all.


End file.
